Girija Devi: The queen of thumri has gone silent

The queen of thumri has gone silent. The death of Girija Devi marks yet another poignant moment in the annals of Hindustani music; her life and labors embodied both the extraordinary turns that music itself underwent in course of the twentieth century as well as the spirit of Benarasi musical culture which she identified with very closely.

Born to a zamindar and a devadasi mother, young Girija responded naturally to the talim she received from a number of accomplished teachers. She was trained to specialise in a number of genres, especially the thumri and the dadra.

Like so many of her counterparts who came into the folds of nationalist reform activity and middle-class domesticity, Girija Devi took up music in right earnest and used her own creative imagination to make the thumri her very own medium of expression. In her artistic conception and through her voice, the thumri became more than a genre that was always associated with a particular community and its aural imagination; it was expanded to transform the very soundscape of Hindustani music. Her talim that carried the markers of traditional seni practice and her ability to use the new institutions in independent India, notably the Radio, made her a household name and the most influential exponent of the purab ang thumri.

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While her inner artistic life was shaped by the city of Benaras and its rich musical culture her individual personality pushed her to seek new pastures, especially on the public stage. Moving away from private mehfils, she came to dominate the public concert stage in major Indian cities and, thereby, carved a distinct space for the rendering of genres, such as the thumri, dadra, hori, kajari and chaiti all of which had been relegated to the domain of the light classical. This was possible only because Girija Devi comprehended the niceties of language and the layers of meaning in the song texts that she performed.

When Girija Devi sang in her full-throated voice ‘ras ke bhare tore nayan’, the listener could not but respond to the rich emotional overtones of the song that blended poetry and music to produce a sensorial feast.

Girija Devi’s tryst with music like so many of her counterparts in the north and the south had a private as well as a public face. She often talked of the enormous support she received from her father and husband but more striking was her experience of an intense practice session in Sarnath. This supposedly gave her an unusual insight into the acoustic elements of music and made her the artist she became.

As a public personality, she was equally at ease – having breached the public domain, as early as 1949 when she performed for the All India Radio in Allahabad, she went on from strength to strength, thrilling listeners and performing in India and overseas. A recipient of several awards, she was a generous teacher and collaborator. She worked closely with the Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and the Benaras Hindu University as well as displayed her ability to negotiate very different modes of pedagogy than what she had been used to.

In every sense, Girija Devi was a trendsetter and wore her personality in her voice and imagination. The confidence and energy that characterised her transition from an older world of patronage and performance to a new milieu of public concerts and institutions made Girija Devi truly magisterial. The world of music will miss her –the city of Benaras especially so.